The first was the ascent of Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency. So, the 1990s was a dead decade, then suddenly the genre came back to life again?Įxactly. On this side of the Pond, with the exception of le Carré-who published four or five post-Cold War thrillers-there was only Remembrance Day by Henry Porter. So you could say that the 1990s is the decade that the spy novel forgot. This was a crisis in the real-life intelligence services too they didn’t necessarily know what useful purpose they were serving. What else was there to write about? You’d had four or five decades of Len Deighton, John le Carré, Robert Ludlum and many others, mining the seam of the Cold War-East versus West, Smiley versus Karla-all those wonderful novels. Can you describe what’s been going on?Īs soon as the Berlin Wall came down and Yeltsin stood on his tank, readers and publishers alike felt that the spy novel was effectively over. I suppose, back in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, I might have naively thought that spy novels were going to disappear as a genre.
You’ve picked five post-Soviet spy thrillers for us.
Foreign Policy & International Relations. If you enjoy this, know that Beatriz's work with the CIA features prominently in Cleeton's 2022 release (and MMD Summer Reading Guide selection) Our Last Days in Barcelona. A page-turning story of love and revenge, though not necessarily in that order. senator, a man who will change her life-though perhaps not in the way either of them hoped. Things get complicated when she falls for a handsome and politically ambitious U.S. But her offer is too good for her government to refuse, and she soon finds herself uncomfortably close to Castro and other dangerous men, seeking precious information the U.S. Beatriz Perez was forced to flee her beloved homeland of Cuba for the refuge of Palm Beach, and will do whatever it takes to help her family and the country she still sees as her own, including begging the CIA to put her to use as a spy-something virtually unheard of in the 1960s. This standalone sequel to Next Year in Havana delivers a tale of politics, history, and love. Some links (including all Amazon links) are affiliate links. By their very nature, the stakes are high in these books-and I hope the enjoyment (for the reader, at least, ha!) is even higher. Peruse the list, take note of books you’ve already read and enjoyed, and those you may enjoy reading next. Today we’ve gathered an assortment of spy novels from different genres. I want to know what will happen next, whether they’ll be discovered, whether they should be caught. But whether someone is spying on the enemy or trying to get one over on a business competitor, spy novels make for page-turning, edge-of-my-seat reading. I wonder: How do they do that?! I worry: Have I ever been around anyone undercover? (Actually, I know the answer to that one is yes, it’s a long story.) There are all kinds of ethical ramifications and the purported Good Guys aren’t always that good, I know. I tend to be a well-behaved law-abider in my regular life, and perhaps that’s why I’m in awe of the spies portrayed in these pages. But upon reflection, I realized I’m consistently drawn to these stories-and should actually make a point to seek them out! (I shouldn’t be surprised: I’ve loved these books since I was a kid reading Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy.) I wouldn’t think to mention spy novels, because I don’t read a whole lot of them. If you were to ask what kinds of books I especially enjoy, I would for sure tell you about compulsively readable literary fiction, compelling mysteries, historical fiction, nerdy nonfiction and memoir and romance. 
Not only did these two books deliver thoroughly enjoyable reading experiences, they also reminded me how much I love a great spy story. This spring, when I was vetting titles for the 2022 Summer Reading Guide, I just happened to read two wonderful books whose plots revolved around espionage.
0 kommentar(er)
